


Let Your Mind Rest Easy, Sleep Well, My Friend

by Shadowolf19



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Tragedy, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Halloween, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Canon, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 13:16:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16476272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowolf19/pseuds/Shadowolf19
Summary: Oh, Steve, why are you being like this?, he wonders to himself, passing a hand over his face to keep himself from saying it out loud, knowing that he’s not ready to risk it, not yet, although it’s been six months now, which is the minimum recommended to wait before coming back.





	Let Your Mind Rest Easy, Sleep Well, My Friend

**Author's Note:**

> I've been busy working at my fic for the Cap-Iron Man Big Bang hence the lack of posting, but with that all done I figured it was time to get back into shorter fics, so when the idea for this came to mind I knew I had to get it done, and what better excuse than Halloween?

I. The first time it happens, Steve doesn’t even register it on a conscious level, simply because he _can’t._ He’s asleep in his old/new room at the Avengers Tower and although his rest is everything but peaceful, the stress and tiredness of the last battle are enough to keep him knocked out during the visit, which last only a couple of minutes, no more. Tony enters the room as if he was tiptoeing, as if he was afraid to make a sound, and goes sitting on the edge of his bed, not daring to touch his body, but studying it from his feet upwards, trying to absorb every tiny detail, to get a reading on the other’s physical condition, not having access to his psychological one. Although with Steve is always hard to tell – blame it on the super soldier serum – Tony knows him all too well to get fooled by the appearances: the gym trousers and shirt he uses for pajama are looser than normal around his body, his muscles less bulgy, his skin has more cuts and scratches than usual and his face looks so tired even though he’s well asleep.  
_Oh, Steve, why are you being like this?_ , he wonders to himself, passing a hand over his face to keep himself from saying it out loud, knowing that he’s not ready to risk it, not yet, although it’s been six months now, which is the minimum recommended to wait before going back. He didn’t even want to do this initially, he felt it would be inopportune, wrong, and could be interpreted the wrong way. Not by Steve, of course not, but he couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t tell anyone, even if just to seek some comfort, some reassurance that he wasn’t going completely insane after all. But then as the date approached, he started to feel like he _had to_ go see him, and that’s the only reason he’s here now, in this room, looking over him as he endures a restless and grey sleep. He hasn’t prepared any words to say, or signs to leave behind, anything that could make the other be aware that Tony has been there, in that very room, when morning comes. When he had been trying to come up with something – _anything_ – it had resolved in a big, scary void. _It’s too soon_ , he had then realized, _not just for him but for me too. I’m still getting used to this_. _How can I bring him comfort if I need it too?_ He sighs deeply and then sits on the bed more comfortably, moving slowly and lightly so to not wake the other up, hugging his knees to his chest and staying there, frozen in his stillness, his eyes fixed on Steve for the whole time he’s in the room, watching his face contrive and grimace as who knows what thoughts his subconscious is projecting into his brain, painfully aware that he can’t soothe him as he used to, and growing more and more convinced that this is just another form of his own atonement.  
  
When Steve awakens with the first light brought in by the dawn, he finds a new, strange feeling waiting for him at the pit of his stomach, and although it’s not exactly painful, it’s uncomfortable enough to make him stand in front of the mirror to check his tummy area for a long while, as if he was expecting to spot a cancerous growth if only he looked _hard enough_. When he’s one-hundred percent sure that’s not the case, he runs his fingers through his hair – which is now a chaotic and greasy mess on top of his head, dry, knotty and in dire need of conditioner – and stares at his own reflection with a mixture of sadness and rejection, one more time resisting the urge to punch it. He takes a shower for the first time in over a week – the blood from yesterday’s fight had spilled all over his white t-shirt and, left unwashed, had consequently dried up and begun to give off a faux smell, one he simply couldn’t ignore it even if he wanted to – then he sits on the bed again (in the same exact spot Tony had sit mere hours before, although Steve couldn’t possibly know that), takes a small notebook from the drawer of his nightstand and traces a simple, small line next to many others. He counts them from the beginning as he does every single morning, then shakes his head and closes briefly his eyes as murmuring to himself: “One-hundred, seventy-nine days… Sam keeps telling me it’ll get better but at this point I’m starting to think it never will. I don’t know what to do.” He closes the notebook, puts it back where it belongs and, with what seems like an extreme effort, he stands up and goes to the wardrobe to take a clean outfit out. There’s a picture of him with Tony taped on the inside of one of the doors, and as he gets dressed his eyes are fixed on it, as if by doing that he could actually communicate with the other. “I hope you have a good day, Tony, wherever you might be…” he whispers to it once he’s fully dressed, giving a soft knock on the wood as he always does – something his mum taught him as a kid, although he can’t really remember what good that’s supposed to do – before closing the closet and dragging his feet out of his room, another whole day in front of him, another whole day in which he’ll try not to get killed by some super villain, even though as time goes by he finds himself wondering more and more if giving up wouldn’t actually be better.

 

II. It doesn’t happen again until a couple of months later, not because he couldn’t do it before, but because he doesn’t _dare_. His last visit still haunts him – sarcastic and ironic as that might sound, all things considered – to the point that he has often thought, hadn’t that been impossible, his heart had actually broken all over again at seeing Steve in those conditions. ‘There’s never enough time’ they used to say to each other back in the day, constantly pulled in every direction, fighting aliens and domestic threats, but right now they both would take that over _this_ without even having to think it over. And maybe it’s for this very reason he’s back here now, against all common sense or logic, because it’s Christmas Eve and before it all went to shit they used to spend it together, Steve not really having anyone else, he wanting to have him close along with Pepper, Rhodey and Happy, his own little family, each of them alone without the others. And Tony needed that feeling more than he ever voiced out loud, because Christmas 1990 was the last one he spent with his parents, and since then the whole holiday period had been a curse, something to get hopelessly drunk over to forget about it. That is, until Pepper had moved in his house and he felt like decorating again.  
As during his previous visit, he sits on the edge of the bed next to Steve, and for the longest time he just stays there, almost watching over him, as if afraid some evil creature could suddenly open a portal in the room and snap him away right under his nose. _You should be with someone, Steve,_ he thinks with no little anguish, _not alone like this. What about that girl you mentioned? What was her name? Peggy, wasn’t it? No, wait. Sharon. Yeah, that’s the one. Where is she now, Steve? Why are you not with her?_ He hasn’t pronounced these words out loud, but Steve twitches involuntarily in his sleep as if he has just heard them all the same, and Tony gets so freaked out that he jumps on his feet, his eyes wide with stupor and uneasiness. The team always used to tease them, saying that they were so in love they could communicate with just a glance, and maybe that was somewhat correct at one point but this? This is another set of cards entirely, because Steve is asleep, has no way of knowing Tony is there, except… except maybe he does, on some mysterious, unconscious level that he doesn’t quite understand. He should go, and yet all he does is getting closer once more, this time actually lying next to him, not daring an actual touch – he’s sure that would wake him up – but breathing in his essence, salty and a bit sour with a hint of blood, which causes a single tear to escape his control, too late to stop it as it lands on the mattress, an imperceptible sign of his brief presence in the room.  
   
Not much has changed for Steve in these past couple of months. He would love to say that at least things haven’t gotten _worse_ , but the truth is, the lack of improvement is in itself a very bad sign. Wallowing in his misery is not his style, and yet here he is, going through day after day with no thoughts about the future, taking unjustified risks in the heat of a fight, spending every spare moment of his free time in the gym, training for something that has already happened without him being able to do anything to stop it. He’s the one Avenger who spends every single night in the Tower – the rest come and go during down times – mostly by himself except for when Sam drops by to check on him, or Peter knocks on his window to chat about baseball (something that Steve has no doubt Tony asked the kid to do – when exactly, he has no idea). They both stopped by today to invite him to spend the holiday week with them, only a couple of hours away from each other in fact, and since he was expecting this to happen, Steve had managed to come up with a lie constructed well enough to hold, leaving them both convinced he had already accepted an invitation from the other. With that out of the way, he had spent the rest of the day in the gym, punching bags and running on the treadmill, whilst FRIDAY kept screening films about the Second World War on the big TV following his request. After the briefest of Christmas Eve dinners and interrupting a couple of bank robberies on his own – these days he would listen to police frequencies as a person would listen to a podcast – he had come back to his room in the Tower and let himself on his bed with his dirty clothes still on, twisting and turning until sleep eventually caught up with him.  
It’s not exactly a nightmare – he’s living through the worst thing that could happen to him, he believes, so nothing that comes up in his sleep can ever be a match – but it’s not pleasant either – again, nice dreams stopped being a reality a good three years ago now – because he’s stuck in a dark, tiny prison cell with no windows in sight. He can spot a key hanging on a wall, but no matter how hard he tries to reach out for it, the distance stays the same. _Tony, are you seeing this?_ , he asks in his dream, more out of habit because he’s used to have him on his private comms, his voice always providing a safety net no matter how weird the situation they were stuck in was. _Tony? Are you there?_ , he calls again, and when he gets no answer, the sense of loss overcomes his body, giving it a light twitch of frustration and misery. But then little by little he starts to feel safe for some unknown reason, the room he’s in becomes clearer, and when he calls the other’s name again he could swear he hears his voice saying something to him, although he can’t exactly make out _what_. When he tries to reach for the key again, his fingers actually wrap around it, and the next thing he knows is holding it into his hand.

 

III. As if pushed by an invisible force, after that night Tony finds himself visiting Steve’s room more regularly, usually once a week; every time, he lies down next to him without touching him, his eyes transfixed on him, trying to absorb every little movement, every breath, every tiny, involuntary twitch: to feel again what once was real, and not just a faulty, sad copy of a long lost time. It’s during one of these visits that his eyes randomly fall upon the calendar on the wall – Steve has never learned to get along with the one in his phone, so he keeps using the traditional method – specifically on a date with a few red circles around it: 31st of January. Something inside of him suddenly clicks in, his heart skips a beat and he holds his breath as realizing that it’s indeed today, the day that just begun a mere two hours ago.  
_Dammit, Steve…_ he curses in silence, shaking his head to himself and starting to feel a ridiculously amount of sadness overpowering him, and every bit of self-control he has left. He stands up and circles the bed around so to face Steve as he sits on his heels, swallowing some courage before letting his words out for the very first time since his visits started, hurrying them to prevent his rational side to stop him, because he _has to_.  
“Steve? Steve, wake up…” he whispers, and his voice sounds weird and way too low for his liking, making him realize just how _long_ it’s been since he actually said anything out loud. And to think he used to be something short of a garrulous… funny how things change. The other man grumps and shuffles his feet underneath the duvet, but he doesn’t wake up, so Tony calls his name again.  
“Tony…? What’s wrong…?” he mumbles, still half a sleep, and the shadow of a smile appears on Tony’s lips, because for just that brief moment it’s like they’re back at the peak of their relationship, content and so comfortable around each other that their mannerism couldn’t just be contained to a bedroom.  
“Nothing, just… wake up, I wanna talk to you.”  
Steve sighs deeply and yawns, moving a bit underneath the duvet, lazily, as if he really didn’t want to hear it, not in the middle of a cold night anyway; he’s about to say that when his brain suddenly starts working again.  
“What the…” he begins, but as his eyes open abruptly and quickly double in size, his mouth refuses to emit any sound at all – and it’s possibly better this way as the last thing Tony wants is for Steve to wake up everyone else in the Tower. Still, finally seeing those blue-grey eyes fills his heart with all sorts of emotions, some too strong to hold back, so before he knows it tears are streaming down his face, and he ends up falling backwards, his back hitting the floor with a silent thud. For his part, Steve is still shocked, staring down at Tony in disbelief, trying to put together the vague resemblance of a sentence. “How is this… possible? Am I… Is this a dream?”  
“It’s real…” he mumbles, snuffling and pulling himself up to sit on the same spot of the bed he’s sat many times before, not exactly knowing how to say the next part and not entirely sure he wants to do it _at all_. But Steve is Steve, and he doesn’t back down.  
“T-Tony, you… you died. In my arms…” the words are mixed with tears and pain and they make both hearts groan and ache in unison.  
He gives a brief nod, just to acknowledge the truth and take some time, but still it’s all a pointless effort to find a logic explanation to something that, frankly, doesn’t have one. So he lifts up a hand and places it on Steve’s cheek, barely managing to touch it, but it’s been so long that it’s enough to send shivers down his spine, and by the look on the other’s face, the feeling is reciprocated.  
“Don’t ask me how _this_ happened, because I have no clue. All I know is… I needed to do this. To see you. I’m sorry if it’s painful.”  
Steve shakes his head and goes to take Tony’s hand into his, but the consistency of the other’s body is not high enough for that to happen, so his hand ends up on his own cheek instead. Tony looks away, trying to mask his own disappointment, and before Steve can ask anything related to it he quickly changes the subject.  
“You haven’t taken care of yourself, Steve. I’ve been… watching you. This wasn’t the pact.”  
“We never agreed to anything…”  
“Except we did, years ago, before it all went to shit. I know you remember it. We were in this same room—”  
“Tony please…”  
“… And we both made a promise to each other. But here you go, not showering for days to end, getting into bar fights with drunkards, spending most of the time alone or in the gym. You need—“Don’t say it.”  
Tony sighs deeply when he gets interrupted, but shakes his head and finishes his sentence anyway: “You need to move on, Steve. It’s time.”  
“… I can’t. Don’t you think I want to? I just can’t. Everywhere I go, everything I do, all I see is your face, all I hear is your voice. I wish I could just snap out of it, but I can’t. Not right now, anyway.”  
Steve looks at him, eyes so watery that it’s like staring into the deep blue ocean; Tony wants to fight it, to insult him maybe, anything to make Steve forget about him, or even just put him away in a box on top of the wardrobe: you know it’s there, but as time goes by you simply stop thinking about it. And still, he doesn’t do any of this, because the truth is, he’d be lying if he said he believed it possible. He himself is dead, and all he can do is lying down next to Steve as often as possible, trying to cling on whatever fragment of his human nature is still present in him.  
“I’m dead, Steve…”  
“I know… But that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped loving you.”  
Once more, the familiar shiver runs down Tony’s back, anticipating new tears forming in his eyes; he looks at Steve again, and this time instead of talking he leans forward to kiss him, hoping that some miracle will make it possible for the other to feel it as strongly and heartfelt as he does.  
“I haven’t either, for all that matters…” Tony sighs on his lips, now wet because Steve is crying too, and it’s only a second later that he realizes he can somewhat _feel_ it on his own skin, and not just as a product of his imagination.  
“I will find a way to bring you back, I swear…” Steve mumbles, and although Tony doesn’t think that’s possible, he doesn’t have the heart or the will to crash both of their hopes. After all, weirder things have happened to them in the past, so who’s to say this is out of their reach?  
“I trust you.” he nods, and then kisses him for a second time and a third, because now that they have started again, it would be an insult to the dead to stop.  

**Author's Note:**

> I'm now taking commissions! So if you like my style and would like to request a fic, feel free to drop me a dm or buy me a ko-fi [here](https://ko-fi.com/shadowolf19), and I'll get to it asap!
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